Rewind, Rewrite, Redo
by Erit of Eastcris
Summary: Funny thing about "killing God" is, it rarely works as advertised.
1. Success Is Failure

"So... We succeeded." An authoritative, masculine baritone rumbled with the weight of years. "Killed God and everything."

"So it would seem." A small boy, seemingly not even approaching puberty yet, responded.

"And yet..." The man stumbled verbally, at a loss for words and waving his hands in confusion from atop his austere throne.

"And yet all that accomplished was sending us either back in time, or into a parallel universe temporally disjointed from our own." The boy finished for him, dispassionate and expressionless in a way that looked uncanny on his youthful features.

"... I don't know about you, brother, but I think this plan's cooked."

The boy sighed and slumped down, sitting cross-legged and looking more disheartened than anything. "I'll... look into it more, but we'll need to develop some other plan of action just in case you're right."

"One that _doesn't_ involve killing the only wife I genuinely like and making her eldest our most powerful adversary." The man said firmly, violet eyes narrowing with a sense of finality that brooked no discussion on the matter.

"Okay, I'll admit it Charles!" The boy cried, a borderline tantrum brewing behind his eyes, "I screwed up and I'm sorry! I won't do it this time!"

The Emperor, Charles zi Britannia, nodded as he rose. "See to it that you don't, brother." Then the larger man turned, addressing the lone other figure in the room as he departed. "Bismark, come. I had best pay a visit to my dearest wife and children."

* * *

 _You'd think I'd be inured to supernatural shenanigans at this point,_ Lelouch thought to himself, _but every time I think I've found the farthest ends of absurdity, things find a way to get even weirder._

He honestly wasn't quite sure how to feel at that moment. He'd failed, quite spectacularly at that; Suzaku _fucking_ Kururugi had betrayed him once a-god-damn-gain, right there in the World of C, and allowed his bastard tyrant of a father to complete his abhorrent assimilation plot to strip away all human individuality. Everyone he'd known was either dead or worse, he'd failed to protect Nunnally, he'd failed to honor the Euphemia's real memory, he'd failed to keep Kallen safe, he'd failed to fulfill his end of the bargain with C.C., he'd failed and failed and _failed_ over and over and over again. And yet there he was, in his bed in the Aeries Villa, nine years old again and wondering just what the fuck was going on. And his door was being opened.

"Oh, what fresh hell is this," he grumbled, sitting upright in his princely bed and frowning bleary-eyed at the offending silhouette; small, childlike. One of two possible outcomes. "Come to do the job more thoroughly, V.V.?" He growled, narrowing his royal eyes in the most withering glare a child could manage—in his case, a very effective one.

"Guess again," a little girl said, "big brother." Lelouch blinked, sliding out of his bed in a confused daze as his eyes adjusted and revealed the truth to him.

"Nunnally?" He said hoarsely, "What're you—"

"You weren't the only one sent back." The girl said simply, striding towards him—right, she hadn't been crippled in the assassination yet—and perching primly on the edge of his bed, leaning against him as if searching for some kind of solidarity. Solidarity he gladly gave her, as the last he'd known his precious little sister had been obliterated in the destruction of the Tokyo Settlement. They both needed the comforting presence of someone else in that moment, he surmised. "I... What's going on, Lelouch?" She asked tentatively, "Why are we back here? What happens next? What are we going to do about... about—"

"Your Highness, I— oh." Came another voice, masculine and familiar. "Please forgive me, your Highnesses, I'll—"

"No, Jeremiah." The prince ordered in a tone long practiced in what he decided to call the first round for now, "Report."

"I simply... that is, I... Er..." The azette Knight of Orange stumbled over his tongue, face contorting in consternation as he attempted to explain something he himself couldn't understand, let alone elucidate. "I wanted to..."

"We were brought back, too, Orange Boy." Lelouch smirked as the man visibly flinched at the appellation. "Sorry for doing that to you, though."

"There is no need to apologize, your Highness." The guardsman said, bowing deeply, "I was proud to bear that title in the end, and I somehow doubt events will transpire in like fashion again."

The once-revolutionary nodded, "Speaking of, come in and close the door." He ordered, tightening his embrace on his little sister ever-so-slightly. "We have much to discuss."

"Just so, your Highness."

* * *

The first thing she'd done had been to leap, crying, into her brother's arms. The second thing she'd done had been to convince herself _not_ to slug him for dying and leaving her alone, since he obviously hadn't done that. The third thing she'd done had been to excuse herself and go back to bed, letting her family think it had just been a nightmare; she wasn't entirely certain that wasn't all it had been. But no, it had been to visceral and lasted too long to just be a dream; too logically structured in continuity. And in the end, it had felt too...

The redheaded Black Knight—well, she supposed she wasn't a Black Knight now; probably couldn't even qualify as a revolutionary—shook herself and blinked back tears, willing away the memories-to-be, if that's what they were, and sat down on her bed. She had a lot of questions, no answers, and no plan of action. At least one of those things needed to be solved tonight if she was going to get any rest, and she could already think of a few different ways to accomplish that. The one she most wanted to do, sadly, was also the one she couldn't do yet, but she had the luxury of knowing exactly how to get a hold of a different option. Sure, she liked to think of herself as Japanese, but she was still half-Britannian; never let it be said Kallen Stadtfelt couldn't scheme and plot when she needed to. Even _if_ she wished the whole time she could just turn to Zero—well, she guessed he was "just" Lelouch vi Britannia right now, Eleventh Prince of the Realm and somewhere in the bottom half of the line of succession for the throne—for whatever his master plan invariably would have been.

Maybe this time around she could actually pull one over on him. Keep him from pushing her out just like that. While she was wishing for the impossible, maybe she just outright prevent the invasion. Hey, she'd apparently traveled back in time; to Kallen in that moment, all bets were off.

* * *

Suzaku wasn't an imbecile. Sure, he wasn't the strategic or diplomatic savant that Lelouch was, or the engineering prodigy Lloyd was, but he had an appreciable IQ and level of self-awareness, however poorly utilized one might feel those things to be with him. So he was able to reach a few rather sound conclusions given his limited understanding of the situation.

One, he was indeed back in the past before the invasion and subjugation of Japan.

Two, Lelouch almost certainly would be as well; they'd both been in the World of C when the Emperor "slew God," so if Suzaku got sent back it stood to reason everyone else there had been as well. Which included the Emperor and Empress Marianne, now that he thought of it.

Three, Lelouch would almost certainly arrange for him to suffer a very painful death for selling him out a second time.

Four, Euphie was most likely still alive in this timeline.

Five, he quite possibly would never see her again anyway. After all, their first meeting had been because Zero arranged for Suzaku's acquittal in the case of Clovis' murder, and if Lelouch was back in the past like he was—which was highly likely if not outright certain—it wasn't hard to imagine the Eleventh Prince holding enough of a grudge and being wary enough of the tactical threat he posed to just let him be executed this time. He could arrange for Zero's grand reveal some other way, no doubt.

Then again, Suzaku pondered as he got up from his bed and stared glassy-eyed into the night sky, if Lelouch was back _right now_ in the same time period, he would probably end up altering the timeline radically enough that Zero would never appear at all. Maybe even save his mother from her assassination and waylay the Second Pacific War in its entirety. A guy could hope. Man, why was everything to do with Geass so complicated?

* * *

Marianne vi Britannia nee Lamperouge slumped over in her chair in her study, expression uncharacteristically haggard even as the rest of her was as pristine and graceful as ever, as she turned over the events of the last twenty-four hours of her perception. She came to a lot of conclusions, some of them tentative, but one of them quite firmly established, in recognition of everything her son had said in the World of C and the unyielding defiance he'd shown right through the very end.

This wasn't going to be fun.


	2. Diatribes

"So," the young, child-bodied Lelouch chimed as he set a tablet with a live news report down on the desk before his mother, "on a scale of 'one,' to 'invading Russia in the winter,' how phenomenally, bafflingly _idiotic_ was your idea?"

The newsfeed in question discussed mass confusion across the globe, as reports from the vast majority of the population arose of "memories from the future" of varying stripes suddenly appearing in peoples' minds. Then it mentioned the secondary panic from those who _didn't_ receive memories, as it was quickly worked out that anyone who couldn't "remember" things yet to come had been dead before the furthest date anyone could recall over a decade from now. The overnight consequences of Ragnarok certainly left a bitter taste in Marianne the Flash's mouth, compounded by the outright scathing _contempt_ in her darling little boy's tone as he delivered in that single sentence the fact that his opinion of her and the whole scheme could not possibly sink any lower. The worst part, though, was that she couldn't actually reprimand him for any of it without adding "hypocrisy" to the litany of things she'd done wrong by him... well, _another_ count of hypocrisy, anyway. Because Lelouch was, infuriatingly, right; if this was the result, the whole plan was a damned fool's errand and everything he'd suffered, the injustices inflicted on him by the very parents who claimed he and Nunnally were their favorites, were for nothing. Less than nothing. So the Empress Marianne, former Knight of the Rounds, didn't answer her son's acerbic query at first, instead staring numbly at the muted live stream he'd presented and thinking very thoroughly about how she could possibly avoid giving him even more rope to metaphorically hang her with.

She settled on giving up the pretense. "How much do you hate me, Lelouch?"

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, mother." He deadpanned. Well, at least he still acknowledged her as "mother," cold comfort that was.

Marianne sighed, "I don't know." She said simply. "Pretty up there, for certain, but this was an utterly unexpected outcome."

"You were dealing with a plan entailing the metaphysical notion of collective unconsciousness being killed by a conceptual weapon assembled and proverbially wielded by two immortals capable of granting people supernatural powers ranging from prescience to mind control." He said dryly, and she winced at the coldness in his eyes. This was inconceivably far from the adoring little boy she'd known so long ago. "What exactly _did_ you expect? For everything to follow some consistent ruleset with a logical and predictable outcome?" He scoffed, and there was the contempt still. "We should be thankful that the worst it's gotten has just been mass confusion. There could have been violent anarchy rather than the quiet—and hopefully temporary—collapse of social structure until everyone who lived deals with their new memories and everyone who died realizes they can change things. At least the therapy business will be booming."

* * *

There was a long, pregnant silence between them as the brilliant little boy housing a genius young man stared down the mother he had, once upon a time, wanted to burn the world to ashes to avenge. In that moment, Lelouch just felt tired. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally; he was exhausted in every way that mattered for an intellectual, a dead man walking in a child's body knowing what could only be the bleakest possible future for him. At least if he had won in the World of C he could have gone on to stomp out Schneizel and pull off one last grand manipulation, but that fool White Knight had to be disruptive of his plans to the bitter end. Now? Now he didn't know _what_ to do. He knew now that his mother had never been truly dead, had never been worth the effort even if she _were_ so in his opinion, and was by and large undeserving of the adulation he'd viewed her with as a child. A child he no longer was, physiology aside; he'd simply done too much for that sort of thing, now.

There was a knock on the door, and completely forgetting the situation he took charge on reflex, "Enter!"

Thankfully it was Jeremiah rather than someone else of the Villa staff, so the slip of social protocol went by without comment. Then again, most of the rest of the staff were probably unable to work at that moment, dealing with the same troubles as the rest of the world. "Pardon the intrusion, your Grace, your Highness," the guardsman bowed to Marianne and Lelouch in turn, reminding the prince that for everything, Gottwald had only been loyal to him as proxy for his mother. Which was fine, he supposed; all possible outcomes placed Jeremiah out of the way of whatever it was Lelouch decided to do. "But the Emperor has sent word that he will be arriving at the Villa within the hour. If I may be allowed to guess, it has to do with the... strange happenings of the morning."

Lelouch looked over his shoulder, back to the woman who'd birthed and raised him, with a perfectly flat expression that said nothing at all, and in that nothingness said volumes of just how unimpressed this whole ordeal was leaving him. Then he shrugged. "Unless he specifically calls for my execution," the once prince-turned-terrorist said simply, "or somehow thinks trying this Ragnarok thing a second time will work the way he wants it to, then none of this is my problem." The boy turned to who had once been his most fanatically loyal follower, "Jeremiah, do me a favor and see about getting me in touch with the Stadtfelds. Specifically Kallen." It was supremely unlikely his Red Queen had been left out of all the festivities, and unless Lelouch missed his guess it wouldn't be long before she started tearing up Japan looking for answers. After everything she'd done for him in the first round, he figured she deserved to know whatever he could tell her about the clusterfuck that had been events of that timeline.

As the knight-guardsman gave his assent and left for his task, the boy found himself turning back towards his mother. Hesitant, really; he knew now that this woman would never be as true a mother for Nunnally or himself as Sayoko had ultimately become, but... Well, she looked wounded enough by what he'd already said. "... Look," he eventually ground out, "If you and the Emperor abandon this hair-brained 'kill God' scheme and make the effort to actually be parents, be family, I'll be willing to let go of the last timeline. At least, in regards to you two." Scheizel, Suzaku, Ohgi and others had earned themselves much more permanent places on his shit-list, and oh boy would he take the greatest of pleasure in extracting his respective pounds of flesh from _them_. "It would be nice," he continued, "if we could just be a family this time around."

He turned and left when he saw Marianne's eyes begin to mist over. He didn't need to see her break down, didn't need the weight of _that_ on his conscience to distract him; Lelouch vi Britannia had plans to set... and apologies to make. And probably a hiding or two to endure before properly making amends with two women in particular; thankfully they'd be spaced rather far apart by his calculations.

* * *

One of those women, well she was a girl again now but damn it time travel made for complicated semantics, was currently preoccupied giving her own exhaustive tongue-lashing to what was... would be... _had once become_ the inner circle of the Black Knights. Herself included, really, hence her liberal use of the term "we" instead of "you," as she elucidated in fine detail just how utterly foolish they'd all been. Well, except for the segment she'd saved for last regarding a certain meeting on a certain _Ikaruga_.

"And what the ever-loving _hell_ were you nitwits thinking?! _Were you thinking?!"_ She snarled, surprisingly ferocious for a little girl—then again, all assembled knew what she could grow up to be, and those memories had imprinted a certain reflexive fear instinct in them all. "I wouldn't expect that level of blind stinking idiocy from _Tamaki!_ And yet there we all were, the lot of you somehow buying into a deal offered to you by _the chief diplomatic snake of the enemy_ , not only _selling out your commanding officer_ for a deal you honestly should have _known_ he'd never keep to, but you couldn't even be bothered to think for the eight seconds it would take for simple _logic_ to utterly defeat your primary grievance!" Her jaw set, teeth grinding audibly as she took a breath both to keep her voice from wearing out and to center herself for the final nail in the coffin. "To wit: If Zero were using Geass to command your obedience, how the—" _No, can't swear here; would cheapen the point._ "... How did you suppose you were able to mutiny in the first place?"

The stunned silence and collective looks of abashed shame were answer enough for her. Really, she had just wanted to get that bugbear off her back, but seeing them actually take her criticism to heart made it both satisfying _and_ cathartic. Ohgi, two-faced craven that he was, somehow found the nerve to speak up first. "Why're you so agitated over all this, Kallen?"

She folded her arms and glared her defiance at him as her initial answer, then sighed when he seemed suitably cowed to actually listen. "Shortly before the Shinkiro appeared to rescue him, Lelouch's last words to me were 'Kallen, you have to live on.' Knowing what I know about him, and about everything that was happening to him at the time, I've come to think that he was trying to save me. From what _you_ idiots were about to do. He knew full well that I'd have followed him straight into Hell if he'd just asked—if he'd just _let_ me. And since I was the only thing he had left at the time, he probably thought he could at least die content in knowing he'd spared me in that moment."

"But he was just using—!"

"And we were using him, Ohgi!" She snapped, "The entire god damn time, we were using him just as he used us! We wanted victory, Zero wanted soldiers. We wanted a free Japan, Zero wanted to strike at Britannia. We wanted to protect the world from the Empire, Zero wanted to wipe the Empire off the face of the earth! The Black Knights were Zero's tools to fight _his_ battles, and Zero was our tool to _win ours_!" Impulsively, Kallen threw her hands up in a display of annoyance, "And after everything he did for us, did for Japan, and everything we put him through, you all threw him out like a broken toy and practically bent the entirety of the Black Knights—who at the time were the UFN's _sole military asset,_ mind you—over the table for Prince Scheizel to dismantle, on the basis of an utterly empty promise. If the tables had been turned, if Zero had abandoned the Black Knights for a place back in the royal family, you would probably all be booking flights to try and take shots at Lelouch in some hair-brained scheme of meaningless revenge. The fact there hasn't been an advance on the Second Pacific War or something else done to ensure _all_ of us are dead says a lot about who has the moral high ground here."

That seemed to shut them up awfully quick. Which she was grateful for, as she seemed to finally be running out of steam for the blistering outrage machine; now all she had left was a colder form of malice and distrust. Even if events conspired in the same direction, it was unlikely she'd associate with them any more than she had to to make contact with Zero. Even if Lelouch didn't have these memories of the first time around, she decided in that moment that she'd just give him new ones. Better ones, hopefully; memories that would let her save him from that unrelenting despair she'd heard in his final words to her.

And to that end, she needed to make contact with some other key players, starting with a certain Prime Minister's brat.

* * *

Charles got an inkling of how deep in the shit he might be when he saw Marianne, fresh from crying and clearly distraught in some fashion. His first guess was that Lelouch had, in fact, joined them all in the trip to the past and given the nearest target a very thorough deconstructing; he turned out to be right in that it happened, but wrong in thinking _that_ was what had torn up his one true love so much.

"Family?" He said quietly, more confused than anything else. Was that not what they were already, tied by blood as they were? Sure, he'd never been very involved in any of his children's lives on a personal level, but he was still their father. But as he thought that through, he came to wonder if maybe that was Lelouch's entire point; his grievance in the World of C was being abandoned, nothing to do with bonds of blood. If anything, being related to Charles by blood had agitated the boy, if his disavowal of any claim to the throne prior to his exile had been any indication. "Family." He said again, still quietly but with a bit more surety, as if tasting the word on his lips. With the Ragnarok Connection most likely defunct, all his long years of planning going up in smoke with it, the Emperor was rather at a loss for a grand driving purpose in life. He would still pursue the Sword of Akasha if anything conclusive came up to assure the intended result, but between then and now there was a whole lot of nothing for him to do with his career or his country. Maybe he could give this "family" thing a shot in the interim, get to know his many children. He might even be able to get them to help, that way.

He was drawn from his musing by a hand laid over his arm. His Empress', his favorite bride's hand, and he found himself looking into her eyes usually so filled with ardent passion and vigor, now misty with tears and red with raw emotion in a show of weakness and vulnerability that was so unlike Marianne he wondered if this was even her still. "Charles," she said thinly, "maybe... Maybe this is a message. A peace offering from God. Let us try again and live good lives, so that we don't _need_ Ragnarok." He balked at that. They'd dedicated years of their lives to the project, made so many sacrifices and drowned so much of the world in abject misery; started wars and ordered the slaughter of _billions_ for Ragnarok, and...

And it had been undone. So much of that work, of all their sins and injustices and mistakes made for the sake of that grand ideal, washed away more-or-less. Not a clean slate, not with most of all the world remembering, but a chance to... what? Make amends and be better?

"I..." He faltered. The Emperor did not falter, but here Charles zi Britannia did as a man without direction. "... I don't know what we should do, Marianne. After... after so long in pursuit of this, I..."

"I know," she told him softly, drawing him into her embrace as she so often had before, "but it's not just us anymore. At least, it doesn't have to be." He blinked.

Family.

* * *

Notes:

Well, that was a turnout and a half for one chapter. Got me pretty motivated to continue, too!

I don't actually have a grand scheme for this story; just an idea that jumped into my head that I wanted to explore the ramifications of. If anyone has plot threads they'd like to see woven, my ears are open.

The takedown diatribes might be a bit much, but they're how I feel the characters would respond if given a neutral-or-better ground on which to argue the point. Very incensed, annoyed and thoroughly-reasoned, and probably what a lot of fans think or feel. I know Kallen's falls under that last one; it's in part inspired by things like _The Whiskey Revolution._ Which is fucking hilarious, by the way, even if it's dead as can be.

Also, this is totally unintentional but I just noticed this story's title can be shorthanded as R3. So I'm going to stick with that for my draft titles.

Reviews:

 **Xlerons:** My thanks! There's a lot of time-travel in CG fan-fiction, but I can think of very few that go back farther than the Shinjuku Incident. I'd love to see more stories take this kind of approach, where an existentially tired and jaded Lelouch gets a chance to keep his family life from going to hell and thwart the impetus for the entire canon plotline while using his intellect and foreknowledge to do pretty much as he pleases.

 **McDucky:** Well, ask and you shall receive!

 **Gur40goku:** Well, Kallen and Suzaku were both members of what were formal military outfits by the end of the last timeline, and Kallen is widely considered one of the smartest people in the core cast when you discount the intellectual juggernauts she's surrounded by.

 **Titanfire999:** Sorry to disappoint, but there are no breaks on this crazy train.

 **Patjeeson:** Honestly I'm pretty sure Lelouch never truly forgave Suzaku in canon, and as this chapter has told you that particular best friend is in for a whole world of pain if he ever crosses Lelouch's path, but for the most part Lelouch won't actively hunt him down. He just doesn't give enough of a fuck at this point; maybe later.


	3. Making Arrangements

"Thankful as I am that you haven't already done that multi-hit-combo thing to me again," Suzaku Kururugi grimaced at the memory of that particular ass-whupping; he'd let it happen, sure, and had most definitely deserved it, but none of that meant he enjoyed it a whit, as contrary to what some might believe, he wasn't a masochist in _that_ way, "Why, uh... why're you here, Kallen?"

The redhead in question snorted in a manner that, despite her physical appearance of a nine-year-old girl, left little doubt that it was a grown woman in control of the body. A grown woman who had seen and done a lot of shit in her lifetime and had no patience for foolishness... Which he guessed she considered to be the definition of his existence. "To make certain that where we stand is unmistakably clear, Suzaku," she said plainly, "namely that I don't like you, and if events somehow conspire to follow the same general path as before, I _will_ firebomb your swearing-in as an Honorary Britannian and damn the collateral damage, but since they most likely _won't_ I want us to agree on a nonaggression pact. You keep clear of my life, and I'll leave you to live yours."

He couldn't even bring himself to bat an eye at her statement. Her naked hostility was intimidating, but she was a child rather than a grown woman in any of the Guren models; the worst that could happen at that moment was them beating the shit out of each other. The guards one might expect to surround the Prime Minister's son were absent due to being too disturbed to continue their duties; the common thread seemed to be that those without prior experience with Geass and all the... _weirdness_ it entailed had the hardest time adjusting, while those like himself or Kallen who had been directly exposed had a high enough tolerance for paranormal bullshit to just roll with everything. Suzaku sighed, taking a deep draught of the tea they'd decided to have this talk over, the atmosphere eerie for the appearance of two children having a tense and mature meeting like adults. Since they were both soldiers and repeat nemeses in a bloody and brutal war in the original timeline, that was to be expected. Honestly, this offer was the best he could have hoped for; it was what he _had_ hoped for from basically everyone involved with Lelouch in the Black Knights, even if he would greatly prefer to be friends and collaborate with them all for a better future he could understand people not being fully able to put the... "past future?" ... _The original timeline_ behind them.

"Are you going to try and get in touch with Lelouch soon?" He asked, putting his response to her offer to the side for a moment. He'd accept regardless, if only because having Kallen gunning for him for the foreseeable future would be hazardous to his health regardless of circumstance, but if she managed to team up with the Eleventh Prince he was quite up shit's creek without a paddle.

"Try, yes. Succeed, maybe. He probably knows I'm going to slap him back into the first round so he might put me on hold." She grumbled the last, folding her arms and grumping in a manner that _was_ more fitting her childish appearance clad in a girlish and modestly decorated dress. "If he _does_ let me in, our agreement would extend to you steering clear of him unless Lelouch comes to you. I don't know if he will or not; maybe he'll be crazy enough to forgive you, maybe he'll send me to take your head in a few years, maybe he'll just wipe Japan off his personal map and wash his hands of the whole ordeal."

"I'd bet on option three, or something like it... I was with him in the moments just before the... what're we calling it, the reset? Rewind? Just before everyone got sent back. He just looked... fed up. Everything had gone to hell for him, and he just wanted it all to be over. Add to that what we learned leading up to the end, and it's anyone's guess what he'll do now, but there's a significant possibility that it involves a lot of nihilistic chaosmongering for his own amusement."

Kallen blinked owlishly at his analysis and deductions, then peered suspiciously at him. "Since when did you get so damn clever?"

"Look, I know you don't agree with my methodology but I'm not a complete simpleton. That'd be demeaning to both myself _and_ to you, mind, since last I counted you hadn't beaten me once in a Knightmare engagement."

Blinking the sudden-onset stars from his vision, Suzaku looked up at the face of a vengeful Crimson Lotus after she'd leapt across tea to drop-kick him square in the face. "Bad idea, Kururugi." She snarled, and he deliberately stayed limp to avoid provoking her further. There really was zero (heh) point to fighting this battle right now.

"Lesson learned," he said instead, "And I'll accept that deal."

* * *

Lelouch stared down at the phone in his hands. There were a _lot_ of calls he had to make, and it was hard to figure out just who to contact first. He _would_ start with that verdette witch, but he didn't have any way to get in touch with C.C.—directly anyway, he'd need the help of his mother or the Emperor for that. He could _try_ directly contacting the Stadtfelds, but that would raise a lot more questions than he had the energy to mastermind his way through at that moment; he could contact Milly, but there wasn't anything that needed to be said between them. Wait, no, there was; he was Zero and it would be far simpler to tell her himself than to let her feel smug about sussing it out herself. Really, though, the person who most deserved a direct call from him that he could _also_ most easily justify making that call to was...

After punching in the number, he put the phone to his ear and sat back at the small desk in his room to wait. Well, "small" relative to Imperial Family standards; it still easily dwarfed anything he'd had at Ashford, being closer to a personal bureau than a mere desk. The line rang, and rang, and rang, and just before it would ordinarily go to voicemail it finally clicked and sent a chipper voice through to his ears.

" _Hello?_ " A girl said, and his heart seized in his chest for a very long second. There wasn't really any way to prepare one's self for speaking to a beloved half-sister you'd been forced to kill to save her from an errant brain-washing into genocidal tendencies. God, if the future couldn't be changed, he'd just shoot _himself_ on the completion of the SAZ to ensure that the Massacre Princess never came to be...

" _Hel-lo~?_ " His little sister said again, and Lelouch finally registered the sound of keening, hysterically emotional wails in the background. Ah, Cornelia; never change.

"Euphie?" He choked out, dozens of emotions raging within him and sapping his voice of the confidence and surety it usually held.

"... _Lelouch? Is that you?_ " The Princess said curiously, " _What's going on? Sister's been having a fit for hours and it sounds like you're on the verge of one, too... Did something happen with Lady Marianne?_ "

"N-no, no, that's... that's not it at all, just..." He sniffled and wiped unbidden tears from his cheeks, a watery grin plastered across his face as he held a conversation he would never have expected to have. It was almost enough in itself to convince him that his parent's hair-brained scheme wasn't a total waste. "... I'll explain to you later, if Nelly doesn't first. Can... can you put her on the line for me?"

" _Huh? Come on, Lelou, tell me what's going on!"_ He could clearly envision the adorable pout she must be putting on, it was a reflex she'd seemingly been born with. The unrepentant bawling in the background stopped sharply, and Lelouch's sense of impending doom experienced a sharp uptick in factors negatively impacting his life expectancy. " _Sister?_ " Euphie said on the other end, " _... Yes, it's Lelouch. No, I don't know, he wants to talk to you... Fiiiiiine, but_ someone's _going to tell me what's happened once you're done!_ "

The Eleventh Prince gingerly held the phone away from his ear, just in case, as he heard the shuffling sounds of the device on the other end changing hands. The eruptive tirade of death threats and epithets that he'd expected, however, wasn't forthcoming. Instead there was just a quiet, disturbingly mousy " _Yes?_ " that had him blinking owlishly at the offending device. Evidently, Cornelia had been thrown off her game pretty severely, if this was all the fire and fury she could manifest, but better not to tempt fate by giving her time to whip up her old wrath again.

"I'll be at the Aeries Villa whenever you decide it's time." He sighed simply. He placed good odds on Cornelia not wanting to kill or permanently disfigure him, not with both her darling little sister alive and well again and her idol Marianne back in the flesh, but it would be idiocy to expect nothing to come from her for all the grief Lelouch had caused her as Zero. "You know, extract your revenge for everything. For what it's all worth, Nelly... I'm sorry." Damn it, why was he still crying? Was this just going to be a day of everyone everywhere crying all the damn time? ... Stupid question. "I am. I... nothing that happened to Euphie was supposed to. Just—"

"— _You're forgiven, Lelouch._ " What. " _What happened hasn't yet._ " Okay, true, but what. " _Euphie's back with us, and if you mean what you say she'll stay that way..._ right _?_ " Ah, _there_ it was; the unyielding iron of the Witch of Britannia in full force. Never change, Cornelia.

"I'd honestly shoot myself before letting... _that_ happen again." He said unsteadily, "Just..."

" _What do you mean I'm 'back with you?' Come on, sister,_ tell me what's going on!"

Cornelia sighed on the other end, and Lelouch grinned at the familiar sound of long suffering. He never thought he'd be so happy to hear that loving exasperation again. " _It was good of you to call, Lelouch, but I'll be hanging up now. We'll drop by the Villa later, no vengeance required._ "

"... Okay. Love you, Nellie."

The indulgent chuckle on the other end was like music to his ears. " _Love you, too, little brother._ "

The click as the line shut left him with a sense of contented hope he hadn't felt in... hell, he hadn't felt before at all. Amazing how quickly losing everything could put things into perspective. It was almost enough to make Lelouch optimistic for the other calls he was due to make.

Idly he penciled in a potential one for Clovis; he probably wouldn't remember anything, but while Lelouch was indulging in sentimentality he might as well ring up the first person he'd ever killed in cold blood and re-establish a more positive familial connection. Not with Schneizel, though; Lelouch would make it his life's mission to trounce the Second Prince if he had to, but there _would_ be blood for the _Ikaruga_ mutiny come hell or high water.

* * *

"... What do you mean he's _gone_?" Charles rumbled. He'd just begun to properly relax in the lounge of the Aeries Villa, discussing ideas for the future with Marianne, when his Knight of One interrupted with news in its own league of unsettling. "Scheizel is the Prime Minister, he can't have just disappeared!" Worse, if he _had_ that meant nothing good for Charles; Schneizel el Britannia was like a viper he allowed into his garden to keep out the rats, but with everything he'd accomplished the last timeline? With him in the wind, able to call on his old retainers and pick up more or less exactly where he'd left off, he would pose a very lethal threat to whatever plan they _did_ pull together, if he decided to move against Charles anyway. Which was the logical assumption, since he wouldn't have reason to flee the Empire otherwise...

"He's running from Lelouch." Marianne murmured from beside him. "He... In the old timeline, Scheizel manipulated the upper echelons of the Black Knights to betray and mutiny against Zero, offering them a free Japan in return. He must be expecting retribution."

"... And they bought that?" Charles said flatly. "Did Lelouch take on a bunch of lobotomized invertebrates as his chiefs of staff?"

"Honestly, Charles, I have no idea, and it doesn't matter now. Scheizel's a very real danger to everything if he decides to go on the offensive." The Empress turned to Bismarck, who straightened at the attention of the woman he most respected. "Secure Lloyd Asplund and Cecile Croomy and all staff they can identify as having worked under them in Camelot. We can't stop Scheizel from reclaiming the developments in technology from the last go around, but if we keep his research staff out of his hands we can at least slow him down."

The Knight of One turned to his Emperor, who nodded in confirmation. "And have Jeremiah inform Lelouch, as well. I get the sense he'll want to be part of this."

* * *

Notes:

Somewhat slow boil, this is, but I'd rather be slow than be rushed. With a potential antagonist on the docket and gambits in play, it's inevitable that plans start clashing and interests conflict; how will these events play out? Fuck if I know before I start writing.


	4. Accelerated Maneuvers

"I am, somehow, both too young and too old for this kind of crap." Lelouch grumbled as he strode into the lounge occupied by his mother and father. What he saw didn't do much to give him pause, but it did abate whatever spiteful barbs he'd been prepared to sling; the Emperor was, peculiarly, relaxed. Absent was the stony mien of a man who could and would command apocalyptic genocide, gone the gargantuan stature of a tyrannical dictator hell-bent on the conquering of not just the world, but of mankind's very spirit. Some of that might simply be Lelouch's own warped perspective from the first round, he couldn't be certain, but for the life of him his parents in that moment seemed less like personae and more like people. And he had to admit; a part of him liked what that implied. "Temporal chicanery aside; Scheizel blinked awful fast. I presume we're already moving to secure his previous eccentric geniuses?"

"I've tasked some of the Rounds specifically for it, yes; at the worst we can slow him down." None of the above meant that Charles didn't look gravely serious, however; this _was_ a very serious matter and potentially a grave threat, and so the focused, intense furrowing of the old man's brow was only natural. "Marianne tells me you have a personal stake in why Schneizel might be running. You're the one who nearly brought Britannia in its prime to its knees, Lelouch, so you tell us; what's his plan of action look like?"

Too easy. "Securing Nina Einstein and rebuilding the FLEIJA. No amount of ace Knightmares will match up to that, so beat him to the punch and stop that bomb from being introduced." The world didn't need a weapon capable of atomizing entire cities in the blink of an eye. Peace through mutually assured destruction was no peace at all. "While we're at it, I'd like to get in touch with Rakshata Chawla. She's an Indian engineer and scientist on the same level as Lloyd Asplund, and was responsible for basically all of the Black Knight's R&D capabilities; Scheizel probably won't know to go after her, but getting her in our camp as soon as possible will give me more to work with. Just tell her I'm offering full sponsorship and access to Ashford Heavy Industries' facilities and personnel and she'll hop right aboard; I'd have a hard time _not_ talking Reuben into working with her." Huh, come to think of it that might have been a worthwhile idea in the first round. He just hadn't had enough allies with Britannian connections, and Reuben's loyalty to his family and general disdain for court politics after Marianne's death could have been leveraged to turn him to the Black Knight's side. Oh well, too late now. "And keep tabs on Suzaku Kururugi. He was the ace behind the Lancelot's effectiveness; if Schneizel manages to recreate the Knightmare Frame it's crucial we keep him from finding a pilot for it for as long as possible." A single Lancelot might not necessarily decide an entire war, but it would definitely decide battles and introduce heavier losses than would otherwise be suffered in engagements. With Scheizel's strategic acumen, that might very well translate into the Empire's slow and inexorable defeat.

"And what do you recommend we do if he's approached?" Part of the prince's mind chewed on the sense of just how odd the scenario was, with his parents asking _him_ for advice. Then again, the Emperor's specialty was politics and his mother's was as an individual combatant, and all three of them knew the Second Prince would think circles around Cornelia like as not.

But that question was a hard one to answer, and Lelouch folded his arms with his childish face screwed up in contemplative consternation. It would be so easy to just answer with killing Suzaku; the part of him that thrived off of lust for revenge was _screaming_ for that answer, but Lelouch's passions had already cost him everything once before. No, having Kururugi taken out would be cathartic, but also sacrificed a tactical asset with unpredictable ramifications from the Japanese people as a whole. "Detain him," he said eventually, snapping back into focus, "and let me handle the rest."

* * *

"I suppose you'll be wanting to mete out some revenge for betraying you in the World of C?" Charles rumbled. If there was one thing he wished his son hadn't inherited from both parents, it would be their ability to hold a grudge; Lelouch's vengeful streak was a mixture of his own ruthlessness and Marianne's brutality intermingled with the boy's unique dramatic efficiency, and damn if it wasn't a frightening aspect of the kid's character. If he'd known just what exiling Lelouch would turn him into in the last timeline, Charles would have put considerable effort into avoiding that course of action, V.V.'s pettiness be damned.

To his surprise, though, Lelouch was shaking his head. "No," he answered, "much as I'd like to, it would be counterproductive. Suzaku is more useful alive and on our side than he is dead or imprisoned; you can attest to that. After all, you made him a Knight of the Round." _In exchange for me_ was left unspoken, but hung in the air like a cloud of poison in spite of that. The child had a point, though; Kururugi was a rare breed of Knightmare Frame pilot that could be put to exceedingly good use if properly motivated.

"I seem to recall there being something between him and Euphemia in the previous timeline..." He muttered thoughtfully, and Lelouch piped up at the bait.

"There were a lot of _somethings_ , but the long and short of it was they had the hots for each other like you wouldn't believe." Now _that_ was an interesting, and abrupt, discovery. "She'd even made him her Knight of Honor. But that's not likely to be a viable course of action for now; Euphie wouldn't remember any of it, and at this point in time she would still argue with Nunnally over who would marry me." Everyone in the room shared a bemused chuckle at that; both girls had been quite adamant about their love for their brother as children. It was quite amusing and adorable, and if Charles was being honest he looked forward to properly observing some of those antics this time around. Maybe. If he didn't scare the poor girl stiff, as he had tended to do previously.

"Which reminds me," Lelouch interrupted their collective musings, "Euphie and Nelly will be paying us a visit 'later,' though whether that means later today or sometime in the near future is up for debate."

"Oh my," Marianne tittered from Charles' side, "that's going to be an awkward conversation for you to have."

Their son simply sighed and slumped back into his seat, visibly deflating. "Yes, yes indeed..." His eyes flickered to the Emperor, who raised a hand to forestall the request that was no doubt coming.

"No, I will not alter Cornelia's memory of events to bail you out of this." He smirked at the expression of resounding defeat that crossed his progeny's face, "You made this bed, Lelouch. It's only fitting you lie in it."

* * *

It had been a very busy and rather tiring day, and Kallen was only halfway through it all. Well, through the day that is; as far as plans went she was about to run into a lot of dead air. As she strode into her family's rather modest manor—compared to the estate after the invasion in the previous timeline, it was modest—she made a beeline for the den where her parents and Naoto had all sat down to ruminate on the strange happenings—Naoto and her father having no memories and her mother needing time to come to terms with everything and convince herself this wasn't just some very messed-up Refrain trip. Her arrival prompted three still very confused but very alive people to look up from their literal navel-gazing, and the Stadtfeld family indulged in shared smiles as she sat with them.

"I must say, Kallen," her father said, "You seem to be handling this rather well." There wasn't an accusation in his tone, or any trace of negativity really; he'd been caught in the FLEIJA, apparently, and as such had been spending most of his mental energy getting to grips with the idea that he had died sometime in the next eleven-odd years. Even if that course of events was very unlikely to play out again, there was only so much that assurances could do for such a revelation.

"I guess," she shrugged her tiny shoulders in response, "I built up a bit of a tolerance for weirdness in the last year or so of the previous timeline." The time she'd spent in hiding with C.C. after the first Black Rebellion had made plenty sure of that. Seriously, where _did_ all that pizza go on that witch, and could Kallen learn to do that? "Besides, I don't really have the time to be confounded by all this, I have things to see to in order to keep the old future from rearing its ugly head here again... Speaking of; dad, how hard would it be to get me an appointment with Empress Marianne's children?"

"Normally, rather difficult." Her father replied, humming thoughtfully as he leaned one arm against the sofa and pulled her mother against him with the other. "But it's funny you ask now, because there was a message from one of Her Grace's staff saying that Prince Lelouch wished to meet with us at our earliest convenience."

So he _had_ come back with the rest of them... Wait. " _Us_?"

"Well, the offer was specifically for you," her father admitted, "but we were invited to come along if we wished."

Now just what would Lelouch want to do with her family? That particular question had a lot of answers, and about half of them were horrible-but-unlikely, while the other half were... _Nope, don't want to think about what that little scheming mastermind is after._ But flat-out refusing would be a bad idea; at this time, Lelouch was still a Prince of the Realm, and snubbing him would be bad optics for her family as a whole and her in particular. Was she really this easy to outmaneuver?

"Well, then," she sighed, even though inwardly she was more than a little excited to give him a piece of her mind and extract the many answers he owed her, "best not to keep His Imperial Highness waiting overlong, right?"

There were still a lot of conditions left to clear, but Kallen's instincts told her things were turning out alright enough. And if there was one thing she trusted, it would be her instincts; she certainly didn't trust the Black Knights anymore, and wouldn't trust Lelouch until he convinced her that he was done screwing around with her feelings.

* * *

Notes:

Dang it, when y'all guess at things I have in mind it makes things awkward. And also makes me wonder if I'm being too predictable in my thinking.

Reviews:

 **Patjeeson:** Actually, bingo. He can't be made PM quite yet (being nine years old at this juncture) but it's definitely in the cards.

 **Ryder77:** Between chapters 1 and 2 Lelouch's running hypothesis was that exposure to Geass or Code was the condition for being sent back, and after discovering otherwise he simply hasn't had time to devote to properly talking to Nunnally. As far as them being gradeschoolers; one of them's also royalty, then another's nobility. Resources aren't infinite but they are considerable.

 **Kaiya Azure:** You're part right, Schneizie isn't running _just_ from Lelouch, but the perspective characters have incomplete information.


End file.
